What's Wrong With Sprint's Customer Service? We'll Tell Ya.

By consumerist.comDecember 20, 2007

Sprint has a new CEO, and, you know, it’s a tough job being “the new guy” and being charged with turning around a poorly performing company. So we thought we’d give Dan Hesse a hand and tell him what’s wrong with their phone-based customer service, seen as being one of their major weaknesses. We asked our readers for their thoughts and they had lots of neat ideas why Sprint customer service sucks. Some of them even have worked on the call center side of Sprint; their insights are especially revealing/frightening…

“Poorly paid reps, little actual training, supervisors that really want you to take a long walk off a short pier, and disturbing work environments, actually. And G-d forbid you wanted to give a customer a credit they deserved! I worked for Teleperformance USA taking Sprint calls my freshman year of college, and they hired anyone that could type twenty-five words per minute, had no drug testing policies and a heck of a lot of people doing a lot of drugs, and the one thing that really made me quit was the employee that monthly painted the bathroom with her… monthlies.” – Pinkpuppet

“CSRs not empowered to make decisions and solve problems…they end up worshiping rules to keep their jobs.” – Comopuedeser

“They need for the Consumerist Hotline people to train the front line guys and actually empower them to help the customer and something might be better.” – Missdona

“One of their managers during a call with them told me that “yes we are ripping you off but that doesn’t mean that I have to refund you the money”…Sounds like a couple people hate their jobs…” – Coder4Life

“I spoke to dozens of CSRs, and I don’t think more than 1/4 of them knew the difference between roaming and making a long-distance call.” – Noquarter

[ed. comment below found on RipOffReport.com]
“I worked for Teleperformance USA on the Sprint PCS account. After the constant all day every day push and shove to make sales, I became a top sales agent within 3-4 short months. I even won a drawing for and X-Box with the other 9 of 10 top agents!!! First they cheat you out of most of your top sales, saying that they broke for one reason or another, resulting in the loss of sales to the agent in hundreds of dollars, then they accuse you of falsifying a sale, that was worth 3 cents, so that they can fire you, because policy is, if you do not work up through the ‘pay day’ of the sales pay out, you do not get your sales bonus!! And they keep that money!!! My last sales check should have been at least $300, that’s after all the other sales they said didn’t make it, which they did, but you can’t prove it, so you don’t get paid for them, which would have made the $300 sales check more like $400. They are robbers and cheaters!! There were several other people let go for the same reasons all around the same time I was last July. I hope all those people see this web site and vent their frustration at being ripped off too!!!” – Debbie

“The only time I have ever had sprint work on my problem was when I would threaten to leave sprint.” – AMARAIN824

“All these people are trained to do is read a script off of the screen. They do this very badly.” – BDGBILL

“The core problem is derived from the nextel merger. they are foolishly converting millions of accounts at a time to a broken nextel billing system called ensemble. Ensemble is sprint’s cancer. The system is crippled, fragile, and was rushed into the field without proper testing of all elements. when you cant find a simple code to say block texting, or sometimes you cant even swap a device, you have to pick up a phone and call someone. the most basic of tasks often requires a call to someone else. the operational costs and the terrible slow down to actually helping a customer that this creates is outrageous. worst of all you have no idea if the changes are done correctly and if the bill will be right. not to mention that sales reps cannot be assured that they will receive a commission on any sale they created with an ensemble customer, thus killing the motivation to actually generate revenue for the company. If these issues were resolved, Sprint would be a powerhouse to be reckoned with. good luck sprint, and good luck to your new CEO.” – Bugmenot2

“Getting bitched at all day does not do much for your company morale and makes you less likely to want to help anyone. Follow that up with incentive plans based on the number of calls per day you handle, and BOOM….the anti CSR is born.” – CRAZYFLANGER

“1) The first-tier reps can’t do anything except read off a script. With 51%, that means you either need better scripts, or need to empower tier 1 to deviate from the script. 2) Even the second- and third-tier reps are often hamstrung by a terrible back end that’s often down entirely, or just doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. Sprint’s computers are awful.” – Dotyoureyes

“i work in retail and sell sprint wireless, att wireless, and have sold verizon wireless…i think the biggest disadvantage sprint has is there computer systems…not even so much the poor people that aren’t very good at communicating the problems to the customer. when you have a problem with verizon or att and you call the person helping you doesn’t have to figure out what billing system your in (sprint has 2), work with a code system that often puts your charges on many different screens (verizon and att reps can see pretty much what you see and work from there), or work with a system that requires codes to charge any of these charges or services. the other obvious issue is that they have too many people that all do different things on the account, and no one person that knows all of the systems. the only way sprint will ever fix there problems is to take there best reps train them in all area, lay off the rest and simplify there computer systems.” – Ibelieveinsteve

“My wife considered a job running one of their call centers a couple years ago…The one thing that got emphasized over and over again was that she’d be assessed based on how much her unit sold services, not on how well calls were resolved.” – Guevera

“A friend recently got hired for outsourced company that has a new contract with Sprint to do customer service. Seems like Sprint let go 80% of their inhouse CSRs because of their bad rap. The problem with the new plan is the want 1500 new people in 3 – 4 months. The outsourced company is hiring anybody left and right (even w/o high school diploma) just to meet the 1500 requirement. I think this means that customer service will actually get worse. Sprint will probably just move on to a new company next year with another unrealistic plan.” – Ncboxer

“The Sprint created training is entirely online. You can just keep hitting “next” if you like, and as long as you’ve gone through it – it’s all good.” – Avengelist

“Well, the most obvious improvement they could make to customer service would be to get rid of their convoluted billing system – the fact that your balance due changes from one minute to the next so they can disconnect you the nano-second you hover anywhere near your maximum minutes or credit makes it impossible for most Sprint customers (who I know) to navigate their account on their own. I have documented at least a dozen instances where my balance shows as zero due on the current invoice just minutes before my phone has been shut off for not paying the bill! Just a plain, old fashioned monthly balance that stays that way til the next billing cycle would probably cut calls to the CSR’s down by half.” – Hypebreaker

“I have spent literally collective days on the phone with sprint Customer service.” -Ivealwaysgotmail10

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they fix %53 of the problems? wow i figured the number would be much lower than that considering the 12 times i’ve called with a problem and the one time it was actually fixed.

btw- i hate it when they say they are going to call you back. who are they kidding? certainly not me. they NEVER call you back. i wish i could bash in the head of every csr who tells me they will call me back and never do.

CSR in general is a heap of problems. Thankfully I’ve never had to use Sprint but my mother had a sprint account a long time ago – she left and never looked back, ’nuff said. Ironically, she loves Cingulatt, but she was a member back when it was just Cingular.

When I worked for Virgin Mobile, they had no drug testing policy, and would hire anyone that applied, no matter what. I quit that job because of the quality of my coworkers; there were more junkies there than in the “ghetto” neighborhood of my city.

When I worked for SBC in 2005 (pre-AT&T acquisition), even though we took calls for billing and service issues (basically customers that were bitching about something), our main focus was supposed to be sales. We were required to make at least two separate sales pitches to each customer, even though most of the customers calling in were pissed off for one reason or another. Our bosses did not care if the customer’s issues were resolved, they only cared about AHT (average handle time) and sales. They pushed sales really hard. I finally quit there simply because I didn’t have it in me to treat paying customers the way they expected me to.

@num1skeptic: So they fix 53% of the problems, whats the follow through rate for the other 47% of people that don’t get their problem resolved on the first call. I’m guess it’s rather dismal, as I read so often about people calling multiple times and then being told they’ll be called back by a supervisor or just plain old hung up on. Welcome to customer service hell.

What makes me cringe is that their humorously tagged “customer service” may well be one of their stronger points: Their godawfully small and ugly selection of outdated phones makes anyone with modern technical needs, aspirations of style, or an asthetic sense sink into a haze of depression.

At one point we were told not to open with a greeting or introduction just to bring our AHTs down further. Literally, just to cut out seconds of “Thank you for calling Sprint, how may I help you today?” as if it counted. I wonder if they still do that.

And sales? They were a joke and a lie and almost always a rip off. I knew a guy that bragged about adding things to people’s accounts and lied about what the charges actually meant. I know people should look at their bills, but… yeesh.

my ex had sprint and they charged him as an international call when it came from my phone number. after arguing with them for a week they finally agreed to reimburse him but only if he called back in two weeks to remind them. ridiculous much?

while sprint certainly has problems with outsourcing their CSRs to non-english as a primary language speaking people, and those csrs aren’t empowered to resolve issues, the core problem is derived from the nextel merger. they are foolishly converting millions of accounts at a time to a broken nextel billing system called ensemble. Ensemble is sprint’s cancer. The system is crippled, fragile, and was rushed into the field without proper testing of all elements. when you cant find a simple code to say block texting, or sometimes you cant even swap a device, you have to pick up a phone and call someone. the most basic of tasks often requires a call to someone else. the operational costs and the terrible slow down to actually helping a customer that this creates is outrageous. worst of all you have no idea if the changes are done correctly and if the bill will be right. not to mention that sales reps cannot be assured that they will receive a commission on any sale they created with an ensemble customer, thus killing the motivation to actually generate revenue for the company. If these issues were resolved, Sprint would be a powerhouse to be reckoned with. good luck sprint, and good luck to your new CEO.

Well, the most obvious improvement they could make to customer service would be to get rid of their convoluted billing system – the fact that your balance due changes from one minute to the next so they can disconnect you the nano-second you hover anywhere near your maximum minutes or credit makes it impossible for most Sprint customers (who I know) to navigate their account on their own. I have documented at least a dozen instances where my balance shows as zero due on the current invoice just minutes before my phone has been shut off for not paying the bill! Just a plain, old fashioned monthly balance that stays that way til the next billing cycle would probably cut calls to the CSR’s down by half. Then they could finally focus on that soon-to-be extinct thing they call customer “service”.

The shareholders demand that the companies they hold stock in make more money. All the time.

The easiest way to consistently make more money? Shaft the customer! Cut back on customer service, limit the things that the CSRs can do to aid the customer (Takes time and money to have someone fix the problem! Takes money to refund money (duh)!), sneak contract extensions in, make the automated phone system more difficult to navigate (can’t reach a CSR, they don’t have to spend time on your problem!).

There are more honest ways to make money, sure. But they take money, and shareholders bolt at the first sign of any losses, since they’re too stupid to understand the difference between ‘spending money to retain customers’ and ‘losing customers.’

my first cell phone was with Sprint. kept it for a few years until i got tired of the horrible, crappy customer service. i dreaded any time i needed to call with a billing problem/question. the reps were always so stupid, i honestly thought Sprint had a special hiring program for the ‘mentally handicapped/challenged’.

as soon as number portability was an option, i switched to AT&T. have been happy ever since.

I have spent literally collective days on the phone with sprint Customer service.

One thing that had been So undeniably obvious to me through the thing has been that it is close to Impossible to get any out of the ordinary or complicated problems solved without A: Threatening to cancel your service B: Calling the Sprint Hotline OR writing Sprint’s Old CEO (im guessing that wouldnt do much now ;-)

I have had 1600$ phone bills, I have had reps hang up on me, One rep i talked to Laughed when i asked for his name then said “My name? (turns to next rep) What is my name?.. Sir I’m Sorry sir it seems i have lost track of what my name is, Please hold” CLICK

I tried to help a freind of mine out recently because She had just purchased an HTC touch, It was locking up and turning off randomly so she went in the same store she paid for it at within 30 days.

Apparently, her account was being moved to their new billing system “ensemble” And she COULD NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM DO ANY OF THE FOLLOWING

Switch her phone out
Cancel her service
change her service
access her account in any way
Pay cash for a new phone, then switch it out
pay cash for ANY phone to switch it out with

for 7 more days! Sprint basically told her, That even though her business requires she be always available on her cell, That there was nothing they could do, They couldnt activate any new phones, They couldnt note anything to her account, they couldnt even see her account. Keep in mind she had the physical receipt with her!

She got so mad in the store that she told them fine she wanted to cancel right now, and she would pay the 250$ early termination fee…. Know what they said? We cant cancel your account! Neither can Customer service, until Saturday so your phone number is locked to that account until then.

She asked them “so excuse me, You cant do anything, Period, SO WHY ARE YOU OPEN TODAY” the sprint reps all just looked at each other and shrugged.

At this point i was really mad, this wasnt even my account but that is CRAZY.

I thought there was no way that sprint could keep her in contract when they denied her service of any type for a week and i was ready to call in to make them cancel her service, but decided to call the Consumerist Hotline, Followed by Cancellations. I left a message on the hotline then called retentions.

Guess what retentions “solution” was? “how about three months of free service to makeup for your phone problems?…. I mean yeah, The bill is about 140 so x 3=420$ saved, But that is NOTHING compared to what my friend would have lost if she missed an important scheduling call.

So he said he would call my friend as soon as her phone could be swapped and he would see too it that they had one ready for her.

He called back on Saturday to tell her it was ready and rudely mentioned that just because he gave her 3 months free doesn’t mean she didn’t have to pay for the phone which was charged to the account.

She got the issue resolved and she loves her phone, And is now still inside her 3 free months. But I’m Still appalled that sprint would make any change that left anyones account inaccessible for a whole week! And no one can tell me that if sprints new CEO had a faulty phone and his account was being migrated, that there isn’t any way he could get that solved.

All in all Sprint has been Screwed up for over 5 years, My bill has jumped from 0 to 1600 to 2000 back down to a few hundred more times than i can count, And each time it takes HOURS and HOURS and re-explanation after re-explanation to get anything changed.

I Genuinely Hope that Sprint changes for the better, When i call the Consumerist hotline, All i can think about is how many people dont have that Number and have to deal with what i did, doomed never to have their issue resolved.

As much as I dislike dealing with CSRs for any company, I can’t really say Sprint has done me wrong. When switching my account to a business account for a company discount, they accidentally toggled that I needed to put down a security deposit of $250. When I called to rectify the situation the CSR handled it within 5 minutes and was very apologetic for the inconvenience.

Funny thing is, for the next 5-6 months every bill I received was showing as a negative amount, followed about 10 days later by a check from Sprint for that amount. Not only did they not receive any money for my phone service for nearly half a year, they paid me for it. After that period my bill gradually approached zero, then back to normal.

I have been with sprint for 3 years, and have had a few major problems. Luckily, during my last problem I found this site, emailed an executive customer service rep and received a callback 2 hours later. Once I explained my situation to someone who understood common sense she refunded the $120 in data charges I shouldn’t have been charged, and then set me up with a monthly discount to cover free data access for 2 years. That is the kind of service that should be offered on the first level. Yea, we (sprint) screwed up, let us show you how we’ll fix it in order for you to keep the service.

I think with all of my poor experiences with Sprint, most of it was owing to poor communication, lack of knowledge and inaccurate training. For example, a server in a tower was down for over a month. Everyone at the Sprint store knew about it, but if you called Sprint, they told you to go to the store, because it had to be the phone. Then getting a repair man out to the tower was a daunting task, having to finally get someone on the line that could put in a ticket on the problem, and then finding my way back to someone in that department when the ticket got canceled because they somehow thought the issue had resolved itself.

I think what is wrong with Sprint’s CSR is what is wrong with so many CSR departments, the operators are poorly educated, and everyone has a different level of experience with everything. So while Sue may know the answer, Sally thinks you’re bananas.

I’m not sure if they feel hiring better candidates, paying them extra money, and actually training them would be more expensive than the customer turnover they have now. However, I think they need to do something. I think most companies need to do something about their customer service.

Former employee of one of the outsourced call center on the Nextel tech support side. 100% agreed that Ensemble is a broken piece of crap. Many, many callbacks were due to the fact that this system is extremely difficult and counterintuitive to use.

Speaking from experience as both a rep and supervisor, your call centers are hiring the lowest quality employees. As an interviewer, I hired hundreds for the Sprint/Nextel project, but if I wanted to decline someone, I had to fight. That’s right, my choice wasn’t who to accept, but who not to accept, and even after declining people because of a total lack of technical understanding or aptitude or even a work ethic (for a tech support project!), they would at least half the time be hired anyway. And then, they’d get one week of training and be thrown to the wolves… Of course, they’d last only a few weeks after training.

The manager on our project was a methhead who it took me about six months of struggle with our site manager to get fired even though he was sleeping with employees and distributing porn to employees from his work computer, and they had proof! It’s a complete farce. Quality employees are driven out by lack of pay increases and revolving door management. I still see them posting ads hiring “150 representatives”… at the time I left, we didn’t even have 150 agents, and that was a year ago. After a year, I know only enough people left on the project to count on one hand, and that includes management.

In my Nextel to Sprint migration, I ended up going 8 days without blackberry service and three days without dial tone. All-in-all, I found their customer service very friendly and willing to try to help, but ultimately nobody was empowered enough to do anything to the point they would just blind-transfer me to another department (sometimes even their own department) after 30 minutes of doing the same troubleshooting I had done four or five times before. I love the ‘wait 24 hours to propagate through the system’ excuse to get you off the phone.

I have had 4 lines with Sprint, 2 of them for about 10 years. The first source of problem for them is the billing system. It is rife with error, thereby causing all the customer service calls. I can scarcely remember all of the stupid blunders that forced me to spend long minutes on hold to beg for credit I had coming to me. But, my last episode was something else. Someone called me to tell me that 3 of my lines were eligible for new phones. I was at work, so I told them I would look into it and call back. My three family members agreed, yes, they could all use a new phone and we poured over the website trying to find something suitable (not that easy – bad selection). The phones would have been $0 with website savings. When I tried to order online, I would error out in various ways. Finally, I called CS (it turned out to be 4-5 calls) and each call the rep offered to order the phones for me, but they would cost $30 a piece after a mail-in rebate! I told them, no, I wanted to order online where I could save the $$ and not have a rebate situation. On one of the early calls, a man told me to call another tech number to help me with the website, but that the person at that number just referred me back to the other number. The last call (the point where I give up and tell my people, sorry, no new phones) a very nice lady tried to help me step by step on the website, and she did get me further than I had been before, but it still did not let me order. Now, if Sprint somehow thinks that I should not be deserving of this special website price, why couldn’t someone just tell me that or have the website indicate such so that I did not waste half of a Saturday trying to order phones that I will never have?

This Forsee business is interesting lately, considering that Sprint just threw up 3 brand new spanking towers on campus, and they’re considering (shhh) forcing students to have a Sprint phone (paid as a part of tuition). This is a part of Sprint and Rave Wireless’ plan to implement bad ideas by force.

To give you a run down – these phones will come with a pre set alarm function, which you set before you leave the library, for example, and if you do not turn it off within a given time frame, the police are notified and the GPS in your phone tells them where you are. This couldn’t be abused/misused at all….

I wanted to change my area code, since I had recently moved across the country. That would require a new 2 year plan, the CSR told me. When I asked to speak to a manager, he hung up on me. That was the end of Sprint for me.

I was on the phone with sprint csrs all through last week trying to figure out my rebate problem. I had sent in a rebate card, the receipt, AND the packing slip which is not required. Then a few weeks later I recieve a sprint postcard saying that my rebate has been rejected due to not including a packing slip or a receipt. Then as soon as I recieved this message I called the rebate center and they told me to fax another copy in and I sent it in on November 20th. I checked the status frequently and still no change. I called them this morning to have them tell me they found the fax but someone threw it away by accident. I sent over another copy and now they are “working” on it.

22 Suggestions for getting good customer service calling Sprint(from an actual Sprint employee)!!!

1. Don’t call in with a bad attitude. It gets you nowhere. Be patient.2. Don’t make demands or tell the rep what to do, remember even though you are paying for service you are still calling in for help! Let us help you!!3. Make sure you are not on your phone when you call. Period. Be near another number if you have to. (sometimes, especially for tech support, we have to have your phone accessible for troubleshooting.)4. If you have a pocket pc, treo, moto q, or any other smart phone, request to speak to Tier 2 Advanced Tech. (and expect longer hold times because these calls usually take longer. We will get to you. 20-30 minute holds are NORMAL!!)5. Dont call in a hurry. Call when you have some time. We can only move so fast especially when using the new billing system. Ensemble/UBP takes a little longer and tech support especially Teir 2 takes time. 6. Listen to the questions we ask you and and answer as clearly as possible. These questions and answers help up determine the possible solution to your issue. 7. Try not to place us on hold when you are calling from work. This makes the calls longer. 8. You may not like Sprint for one reason or another but the rep you are speaking to is not the problem. Treat them well and USUALLY they will treat you with the same regard.9. Treat each transfer as a new call. Dont expect the rep to know your issue right off the bat. Just give them the information they need. Maybe ask for them to view the notes on the account. (We are supposed to note calls but sometimes rules are broken.) 10. Refrain from cursing. We wouldnt cuss where you work. 11. Don’t yell or use rude talk. It makes a difficult situation even worse. 12. Try to call from a quiet place and try to focus on the call and not another conversation or activity.13. Know your phone/aircard numbers and passwords (pin numbers for Ensemble/UBP) and what kind of device you have. It makes opening an account quicker.14. Know your self help options. Sprint.com – for store locations, downloads, web blocking, etc., * (star)codes for checking account balance info15. Trouble tickets take time and when opened correctly for a valid reason, they are the most a rep can do on a phone call. We can add notes but nothing more, typically you should get a call within a few days.16. A disconnected call is not always a rep hanging up on you. Sometimes calls are lost. If you think a call may disconnect offer a callback number. 17. The majority of Ensemble problems with accounts being inaccessible for large amounts of time has been fixed for the most part. But if you are converted to Ensemble, your account will not be accessible for 4-5 days for anything. 18. If your phone is freezing or resetting take it to a store. We can only do hard resets for that usually.19. Sync your smart phone or get wireless backup for other non-smart phones , we have no other way of backing up your contacts otherwise.20. Don’t try to tell us the whole story. Tell us what we need to know to understand the problem. Then let us ask follow up questions even if they sound simple. 21. Try not to complain about previous reps or calls, there is nothing a rep can do about those issues, only the call/issue at hand.22. Just be nice!!

I used to work for a retail store that sold Sprint phones. I sold a lot of Sprint phones, but I DREADED having to call Sprint. First of all, there were no less than 3 different toll-free numbers that we were given to call. It was like playing Russian Roulette trying to figure out which number was appropriate for the problem, which was usually not the same as the number that got answered most quickly. We also had the option of calling the Sprint representative for our area – but my store was located on a boundary between two areas, and they switched the side we were on twice, and they also changed the reps for both areas, in the five months I worked at that place. Second, once you got someone on the phone, there was no guarantee that they would be trained enough either to help me or even to transfer me to someone with the training! Third, their billing system was so complicated by the three new plan sets they released during my employ (again, keep in mind I only worked for the store for five months) and the major tangle produced by their integration with Nextel and the new plans that generated, that it was frequently impossible to navigate and/or wouldn’t work properly, thus requiring the dreaded call into customer service! Fourth, about a tenth of the time, the account process would complete…and then the phone activation process wouldn’t. Oh boy, time to call customer service again!

I just used sprint’s online chat function, and here is the transcript. Note the log times on the chat session.

17:57:27 Connected to sprint-ap1.cnxchat.com
17:57:27 Session ID: 704300
17:57:32 Please hold and the next available agent will be with you shortly.
17:57:32 Krissy has joined this session!
17:57:32 Connected with Krissy
17:57:37 Krissy
Thank you for contacting Sprint. My name is Krissy. May I have the wireless number you are calling about please?
17:57:42 Customer Michael
XXX-XXX-XXXX
18:01:19 Krissy
Thank you Michael. How may I assist you today?
18:01:52 Michael
I am trying to log into my online account for sprint, but I keep getting sent into a nextel account that I had several years ago with the same phone number
18:03:24 Krissy
Due to lack of response, this chat will be disconnected. If you require any additional assistance, please log back into chat and we will be glad to assist you. We appreciate your business.
18:03:24 Krissy
After our chat, there is a survey. Can you please take a few minutes of your time, fill out the survey. Thank you.
18:03:31 Michael
?
18:03:31 Krissy
Have a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Years!
18:03:31 Krissy
Thank you again for contacting Sprint. We appriciate your business.
18:03:39 Krissy has left this session!
The session has ended!

My favorite part was that it then popped up a “survey” window, but the URL was bad and returned a “bad request” error.

I am guessing that they have the worlds worst phone support, so everyone tries to use online, so they just dump people out of the online queue when it gets too heavy.

@lostalaska: “whats the follow through rate for the other 47% of people that don’t get their problem resolved on the first call.”

They don’t give a rat’s ass about the other 47 percent; their numbers are only about the 53 percent. I went through four reps before I found one who knew how to port over a cell number (yeah I know, porting an old number to a new service never happens. no one EVER keeps their number when opening up service with a different carrier. /sarcasm).

When they hit me with the QA survey a week later, all the relevant questions were things like “Thinking back to the last person you spoke with…” They didn’t want to know about the first three reps who screwed up. That whole part of the story didn’t even exist for Sprint’s metrics.

I am no spokesperson for Sprint. I do not make decisions that effect the company but am effected by those decisions. In my experience as a sales rep, I have seen little effort to keep the customer and on occasion, have seen the turning away of long-time loyal customers due to what almost seems like apathy from management and customer service. I agree with what is said previous to this post concerning Sprint coming through for customers only when they threaten to terminate. I will also say that good luck using this as a tool if you are within your contract– your $200 will probably suffice for the loss of a customer.

I work for eCare which is Sprint’s new feature to chat in to speak with a CSR. I enjoy it, minus a few features they have to work out with it. But from my side, when it says “My Sprint is temporarily unavailable” and a paragraph of explanation, some customers actually expect me to fix the web site! Or better yet, “Please credit my account for casual data” and the max is $75.00. I look at their bill and they have download games and ring tones. Hello, read your bill folks. Yes, I am laughing with a lot of questions that customers have when they chat in. You don’t know it but it actually makes the chat a lot better and I’m not rude to people, just thinking, wow, can some people truly be this stupid? Like, “I’ve forgotten my password.” Have you clicked on “Forgot Password? “No.” There are always 2 sides to every story. I do provide good customer service but believe you me, some customers who are bored at home, just chatting in like I’m a porn star, makes my day hilarious! I give out a free code for ring tones and I do explain, if you do not have Vision, you will be charged for casual data. And the survey the gentlemen was referring to, I can issue credits, be nice and the customer is still a jerk and give me a poor score beside he woke up on the wrong side of the bed. So let’s admit folks, the customer is not always right, I just let them think they are.

The reason that there is bad customer service is due to all of the people they let go that were mostly of the legacy nextel company. The sprint customer service has always been bad and unfortunately the legacy nextel associates inherited a huge mess when the companies merged. The sprint company unfortunately doesn’t know how to treat key employees which is why many of them jumped at the opportunity to take the money and run when offered. Many long term employees also left because of the workplace being such a horrible environment. Many employees are being asked now to be more flexible than ever to help bring this sinking ship back to ground.The sales teams are no different as many are given bigger challenges to try and save many of the company’s high profile corporate and government accounts that are leaving on a weekly basis due to poor network and customer service. This is where the focus is at the moment on the BIG Business and not the small business. The quarterly reports show growth with EMBARQ which is why the CEO came in. This will now be expanding into the WIFI side and the reps are going to be pushed to the limits again all over as they will be poorly trained and asked to weather this all over again on top of their already big jobs. The net adds also became large due to BOOST for subscribers that wanted a pay as you go phone and many were not credit worthy to begin but wanted the nextel phone.The retention teams which is account services that disconnects phones is given only so much money to work with when customers are wanting to cancel. They sometimes work with sales if the account is big enough and wanting to cancel to keep the customer.Unfortunately the hurdle is that there are many reps that are not empowered in having the proper tools and resources so many of the issues people see is due to lack in training and retaining of good employees

Sprint’s Customer Service is here to resolve customer’s issues. I shld know. I work for Sprint through a call center. While we may not please everyone, a lot of our callers are very satisfied with the solutions presented.

Sprint always correct errors. In fact, we don’t hesitate giving out credits for invalid charges. We just need time to do our own research. Who says that Sprint is just concerned about sales and AHTs? I beg to disagree. They are looking for good QA, CSAT & issue resolve. To ensure best service, Sprint now has ZTPs (Zero Tolerance Policy) for rudeness, failure to call back and the likes.

Also, please don’t fault Sprint from outsourcing their customer svc from other countries. I am from Asia. I believe I can speak and write english well. There may be times that miscommunication arises, but that is quite normal in any normal human relationship.

Our race is not a hindrance to give you BEST SERVICE. We are properly schooled and trained. We are committed to give you the BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE there is AT ALL TIMES. We truly value YOU. Not only as our clients, but as our friend. It is always our pleasure to be of service to you. You can trust us with the management of your accounts and basic troubleshooting. We are going to do everything just to resolve your reason for calling. Sometimes, a call back is even necessary (which we always fulfill) to do that. We take ownership on each and every call.

Honestly, I just accidentally accessed this website and reading all the comments was painful. Nevertheless, feedbacks are always welcome. It will help us in assessing our services and be able to better deal with your concerns. Thank you, indeed!!!

LOOKING FORWARD TO BE OF SERVICE TO YOU IN THE NEAR FUTURE ….. Oh, by the way, there maybe suggested scripts but we don’t read them verbatim. In fact, we use our own spiels spontaneously. Furthermore, Sprint is giving us enough freedom to make decisions though guided with some workarounds. Pretty much like in going through life – freedom but guided with our principles (always thinking for everybody’s good). The bottom line is …. product knowledge. Sprint is aware of this. That is the reason why there are re-trainings very now and then.

I have been a customer of Sprint for 6 years this coming February. I have had 9 telephones (most of which I have purchased at full price) and have modified my plan and/or re-signed contracts more than half a dozen times. I have encouraged my family and friends to join the company praising the superior variety and selection of telephones, plans, and internet interface. Last year my best friend’s father opened his business accounts with Sprint (totaling in excess of $3500.00 monthly) at my encouragement.No longer will I be praising Sprint to anyone that I know. Quite the contrary in fact;In the past 30 days I have lost ALL confidence in Sprint’s ability to resolve even the simplest issue via their Customer Care Dept. Let me preface this by explaining that I am a Manager for a Customer Care Call Center for a $40 billion dollar bank. I intimately understand the logistics of the job – the shortfalls, the training difficulties, retention, conversions, acquisitions and complaints. With that being said, I CANNOT understand what Sprint is doing. Hold times exceeding 30+ minutes are unacceptable. First call resolution and 100% ownership of each call is the foundation of any good call center. When calling Sprint you are almost certain to hold for AT LEAST 15 minutes (on the inside of the norm) and you will be almost assuredly transferred multiple times, possibly hung up on, and most definitely you will give your telephone number and SSN or password with each transfer as they seem to be unable to forward that information with your call. In a call center we use the term “warm transfer” meaning when a call is transferred to another dept or rep you forward the information as to avoid inconveniencing the customer with multiple verifications and tedious questioning to reiterate the problem. At Sprint you are placed on hold to “review” the notes and all of the sudden you are greeted by an entirely different person unaware of the transfer or the situation. I have made 19 calls to Sprint in the last 3 weeks. I was hung up on 7 times, transferred 11 times (4 of which I was not even told I was going to be “dumped onto another rep) and was placed on hold for a total of 4 hours and 43 minutes. I requested a supervisor and held for 48 minutes 23 seconds before I was hung up on. In my Customer Care Center we refer to supervisor calls as “escalated” calls. Our standard for ANY call escalated or otherwise, is NO more than 90 seconds hold time. Sprint apparently does not hold the same priorities. I have always appreciated the importance of a strong Customer Care Dept, however after this exchange (among others that I have insufficient space to elaborate on) the face of Sprint will be forever scarred. I do not have higher than average expectations; I feel that my understanding goes farther than an average person as I understand the workings of a call center and the difficulties surrounding the job. I feel that my patience was extended further as a result of my intimate understanding but even with the grain of salt that I gave Sprint this kind of service is deplorable AT BEST and inexcusable. I am most assuredly going to move to another company at the time my contract expires if not considerably sooner. ETF or not I do not plan on doing business with a company that repays my loyalty and constant support with this quality of treatment. Sprint will not be “seeing me around”

I have been with Sprint since May of 2007. Previously I was with Verizon for about 3 years. I was very satisfied with the support of calling Verizon, however I wanted better reception and mobile-2-mobile (most of my friends have Sprint) so I switched.

I was aware of the “bad” reputation that Sprint customer service had. Yet, I felt that with good karma and respect, I could have a positive experience.

Let me just say, after reading the above posts, everyone is in their own way correct. However, as “ROADRUNNERSPRINT” said above, the call to the center is a 2-way conversation. So now let me address that issue.

I can attest to waiting 15-30 minutes (at worst I had to wait one hour) just to get a live rep. I can also attest to being transferred multiple times, hung up on, and felt like I was stupid, all while I swear I sustained using vulgar language, unpleasant tone, and being disrespectful. On the flip-side, however, I have had very good luck with Sprint. Let me disclose how and why.

I ordered new line of service through SPRINT.COM and ordered a RazR phone but received the MOTO-Q and was charged for the wrong phone even tho my packaging slip said RazR. It took about 5 calls, and two billing periods to fix THEIR mistake. However, because I was nice about it and didn’t raise too much fuss over it, several things happened to my benefit:

1) The correct phone (aka razr) was over-nighted to me at no charge.
2) The “sales tax” was credited to my phone (so, in essenece, I didn’t pay sales tax)
3) The “mail-in-rebate” was immediately applied to my account (no mailing necessary!)
4) I didn’t pay a single cell phone bill for 6 months due to “credits”

Now that I have paid a few bills after the “credits” wore off, I can honestly attest that there has been virtually no billing problems. As noted above, as a Sprint customer you have to read the fine print before you do anything because, it is true, Sprint is known and a master at manipulating you and, when you question it, quote/point you to the line that they call is the disclosure.

In conclusion, I am very impressed with the reception that the Sprint network offers. And you honestly do not pay any roaming which is great. And they offer the lowest “Unlimited Text Package” of any cell phone provider at just $10.

My final thought (post-conclusion): Sprint is a competitive company; though they do lack customer service skills. I do not regret signing a contract with them. Expect to have the first couple bills messed up and expect very long hold times. Aside from all the “negativity” of Sprint, I believe they are well worth the time and money.

I do not sell Sprint phones nor am I an employee of this company. However, if you are a current customer of Sprint and/or am thinking about signing up with them, feel free to email me any questions or concerns you may have at: ivcdawg@hotmail.com .

I’m a Sprint employee. Sprint has the worst Customer Service. Our customers tell us this all day long and many of the Cust Serv. Agents are my co-workers. I have been cheated out of 4 months of sales bonuses ($400 per month). The Team Managers, Office Mangers, Sales and Human Resources Mangers have continuted to lie and scam the employees. They have messed up our sales and quality assurance performance sheets. Time cards and paychecks are always short. They are the worst company. Many people can’t afford to quit their jobs without having another job to go to. They promote women with breast implants and face lifts to Team Manager positions. Some departments only have African-American employees. Other departments have only Hispanic-American employees. One department has only gay/lesbian employees. Yes, they are divisive and segregate people. Many employees are rude, unprofessional to customers and they keep their jobs because they are favorites of the managers. Other employees have been fired because they were late due to transportation problems.

For three weeks i have been trying to resolve an issue with sprint and in the l last 2 days I have spent at least 4 hours on the phone with CS Reps. Some of which have just hung up on me, some of their CS reps just dont give a damn, and the extremely RARE and treasured few that are actually wonderful at their job and care about doing a good job. I have been told a few different times that someone would call me to resolve my issue with $401.50 That I feel i shouldnt have to pay since their crappy Internet card wouldnt even work on my computer and yet they still charged me huge overages even though I wasnt using it. I have offered to pay the $150 in Early Termination Fees in exchange for them crediting my account for the charges.